Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade (Criminal Mischief Book 1) Read online

  Ed put me on the floor a few times and did more damage to me than Sergiu ever could.

  After six years together, Ed knew how to knock me down and tear me apart, and I knew how to adjust the mirrors so he was blinded by all that bright white truth.

  As with any divorce, there was much more to our breakup than could be explained in a sentence, but we still tried. We told everyone the fault was mine, that Ed wanted children but I wouldn’t agree. It made things simple.

  But between the two of us, we thought the fault started with the other. I thought I had merely overreacted to what Ed was doing, and Ed didn’t think he had done anything wrong. To those closest to Ed and I, who knew the full details of our divorce, they thought we had both acted in appalling ways.

  But still Ed said to me, “If we were to tell any normal person out there,” in acceptable society he meant, “what each of us had done, they would all think what you did was worse.”

  I’ve told the largest part of what I did, but there was more happening than just my crimes. I will never divulge Ed’s part, so I can’t know if he was right. Maybe he was, and I alone would get the blame, but I suspect most of you so-called normal people would step back and say, “You both deserved what you got.”

  My offenses were felonious and could have put me in jail, and in Ed’s defense, he never once lied to me. He was at all times brutally honest. In return, I gave him what I would have preferred, the comfort of a lie, the courtesy of concealment.

  Years later, a cruel lover would ask, “Are you lying to me?”

  And I answered with blunt honesty, “I don’t care enough about you to lie.”

  In the end, that was the essence of my love for Ed. I loved him enough to lie when I thought we could fix it, and I respected his desire for the truth when I knew it was past repair.

  Ed was neurotically honest and he taught me to be psychotically honest.

  I suspect Ed would deny it, but I understand why he was so fully committed to speaking the truth. The absolute truth is a wicked sort of rush. It’s far more amusing than any lie. Both have the potential to empower and to hurt, but the truth is emotionally superior. Few people could fault you for it, not when you’ve got ethics on your side. The truth is morally unassailable.

  But it has no pity. It is merciless.

  And the truth is, if I don’t love you, I am one of the most honest people you are ever likely to meet. Well, that and you have to know my real name.

  Contact

  The second book is this series is called The Expatriates. You’ll find the first chapter below.

  For more about this series, or to contact me, please visit tanyathompsonbooks.com The website is also where you can find copies of the newspaper and magazine articles mentioned in the book.

  The Expatriates

  Possession really isn’t nine-tenths of the law. If it were, I wouldn’t have been worried.

  I was on the side of the road in Texas with eight squad cars. They’d surrounded both me and the 5-speed convertible that was in my possession. I’d just crossed one county line into another, so I had city police, state troopers, and two sheriff’s departments to contend with.

  And the little red Mustang was stolen.

  I’d driven it off a dealer’s lot for a test drive that was going on close to a year, and things had been going so well, I couldn’t think of a reason to take it back.

  The paper dealer tags had blown off shortly after it topped a hundred, so, to avoid any hassle with the cops, I’d taken the tags and registration from my 1979 Mustang and applied them to the 1990 model. And then, just to keep things tidy, I got a little help moving the VIN plate over as well.

  I’d already been pulled over a dozen times with this ridiculous set-up, but that had always been in Tennessee where I could play I know your mamma.

  It’s a great game. “I know your mamma” is how it starts.

  “You know my mamma?”

  “I sure do. She invited me to church.” If you’re in the South, you can safely rely on the officer’s family attending Sunday service. You can also assume they meet afterwards for lunch—which is called dinner—and at least one relative has had a recent misfortune. “Your mamma wanted me to come round for dinner, but I had to go up to the hospital to see that cousin of ours.”

  “You related to Bubba?”

  “You didn’t know we were related? That’s how I know your mamma.”

  “Well, I’ll be.”

  And that’s generally the end of it.

  But in Texas, I had Tennessee plates and no one was going to believe I knew their mamma.

  Twenty miles before, I’d lit up a deputy’s speed gun with a triple digit number that left him ten minutes behind. He’d radioed for help, and I was the only thing happening in Texas that hour.

  By the time one squad car caught up, seven more were descending.

  The sheriff, police, and state troopers from one county were driving straight into a similar group that was cutting across the interstate median from the next, and I was wondering who did what to whom for all the attention.

  The entire south bound lane of traffic came to a stop and I was surprised to be singled out.

  Once we all got onto the side of the road, twelve men in seven different uniforms held a conference to discuss who got to claim responsibility for the drug bust.

  I asked, “Drug bust? What drug bust?”

  And one of them said, “We know you’re smuggling.”

  “Smuggling?” Dear god, “Smuggling what?”

  “Drugs, obviously.”

  “How is that obvious?”

  “You’re a lone woman traveling through Texas from out-of-state.”

  “Oh. It’s obvious then.” But it wasn’t. I wasn’t smuggling drugs. I was driving to Central America with a stolen car for no other reason than it amused me.

  And it was still pretty amusing until one officer started checking my registration against the VIN. Nobody had ever done that before. I had never let it get that far.

  The VIN plate had been attached with Crazy Glue, and I had no idea how it was fairing with the temperature over a hundred. I needed to get the situation under control, but Tennessee games weren’t going to play in Texas. I’d have to know someone higher than their mammas. I was running the possibilities through my mind, “I know your mayor. Your governor? Your God?”

  Then another officer was calling in my license while five more invited me out of the car to debate which could detain me, and the remaining six didn’t wait for my consent to search.

  I was pretty certain there was not enough charm in the world to bring them all back into conference again.

  And the numbers were against me. Of the twelve officers assembled, one of them surely knew the difference between a 79 Mustang and a model that was only three years old. Surely.

  Switching the VIN and tags no longer seemed such a clever trick. I wondered why I thought I could get away with it.

  I watched one officer stop the cd player and another lower the power windows.

  Power-freaking-windows. Blessed hell.

  I tried to think of who to call for bail.

  After fifteen minutes of removing the door panels, the spare tire and the backseat, one of the officers finally turned his attention to my overnight case. It was a vintage piece from the 1930s and he didn’t know which end was up. He put his fingers on the double locks to flip them back, and I said aloud, “Oh, dear god, no.”

  It snapped every officer’s attention onto the piece, onto me, then back to the luggage.

  They knew they had finally found the stash. They were elated. From one county, a deputy took hold of my arm to claim me as their own, and from the other county, a second deputy pulled me back.

  Then the luggage spewed makeup, perfume, and tampons across the asphalt.

  I shook my head and explained, “He opened it upside down.”

  They were mortified. There wasn’t a man among them that knew what to do with the articles litte
ring the road, and to ensure none of them had to contemplate it, the search was called off.

  “I was sure we had a case,” said one of the sheriffs.

  “I have never been so certain,” confirmed a Trooper.

  “Really?” I asked. “Do I look like a drug smuggler?”

  “Yes, ma’am, you do.”

  “I do?”

  “Single woman traveling alone,” the sheriff explained, and all the officers shook their heads to agree that it would look as such.

  “I hate that I look like a drug smuggler,” I frowned. “I’d rather look like something more appealing, like, oh, I don’t know...” I couldn’t believe I was actually going to say it, but I did, “… like a car thief.

  “Well, we get quite a few of those down here too.”

  “Really? How very exciting. So what does a car thief look like?”

  They all stared at me like they had only just realized I was an idiot, and I had to tell myself to shut up before they figured out what kind.

  ~~~~~~

  I often had to tell myself to shut up. After three weeks driving south through Mexico, I was at the Belize border trying to convince the custom’s official that the value of the Mustang was $500. If I wanted to enter the country with it, I’d have to pay 100% tax.

  I said, “Ok, here’s five hundred US cash.”

  He looked at the cash and then at the car. It looked like we might have a deal, but then he reconsidered. Running his hand over the plush upholstery, his accent seemed to become heavier, more Caribbean, “This car be worth more than five-hundred on the island.”

  He was undoubtedly correct, but I had to know, “What island?”

  “This island.”

  “What island?”

  “This be Belize island.”

  Belize was settled by freed and emancipated slaves, so the majority of the population spoke English Creole. I thought we might be having a language problem, so I asked again, “Where is this island?”

  He pointed under his feet, “This be Belize island.”

  “Belize is an island?”

  “Yes!”

  I didn’t know what to do with that. I’d taken off from Tennessee without a map, so I had nothing to prove it wasn’t.

  But it wasn’t.

  I had to know, “Where are you from?”

  “I be from the island.”

  “This island?”

  “Ya, this island we be standing on.”

  I couldn’t decide if he was stupid or if he was toying with me. I stared at him crooked for several moments hoping the truth would reveal itself and when it didn’t, I held up my hands to concede, “Ok, an island it is. I’d like to enter the island.”

  “Tax on car be fifty thousand dollars.”

  “It’s not an island.”

  “Belize be island. Tax be fifty thousand.”

  “You want that in cash?” I was a little sarcastic.

  But he was sincere, “Or credit card.”

  I might have gone with credit if I’d been traveling with cards that weren’t in my name, but I’d left all my erroneous identities in the States. The only illicit thing in my possession was the car. And the custom’s official was starting to look at the paperwork with suspicion.

  I decided it was time to leave. “I’m just going to pop back across the border to Mexico.”

  He squinted harder at the forms, curious to read, “One nine, seven nine.”

  “One of the banks over there might help me secure that fifty-thousand.”

  “Nineteen seven nine.”

  “Why don’t you just hold this five-hundred as a deposit?”

  “Nineteen seventy nine?”

  “I don’t need a receipt.”

  “This year be wrong.” He began to circle the car with the form and my registration.

  “Was that a picture of your mamma I saw inside?”

  He looked up from the rounded headlights. “Where is this picture?”

  “Inside. There was a picture of a lovely woman on the desk.”

  “Ah, ha, ha,” he laughed. “You see my beautiful woman?”

  “I assumed it was your mother, considering …” I looked him up and down. “She’s lovely.”

  “My madda is very pretty. You can see this?”

  “Oh, absolutely. I’d never doubt it. I imagine all your brothers and sisters look like her too. How many siblings have you got?”

  “We be big family. My madda raise eight children with no man.”

  “Bless her heart, she’s a saint.”

  “My madda is a saint. But you,” he exhaled slow and seemed sad to look at the Mustang. “What I do with you?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m no hassle. Keep the five-hundred as a deposit and I’ll be back tomorrow with more.”

  He smiled.

  I smiled.

  Things were looking good.

  “I like this car,” he said.

  I raised my eyes to agree it was a likeable car.

  “Do you think I would look good in this car?”

  My smile was hopeful that this was not about to happen.

  But he continued, “I could get many a woman in this car.”

  I frowned. “It’s not really a man’s car. It’s pretty girly. I could see you in a Camaro, or a Cadillac. Yes, a Cadillac would suit you better.”

  “But there is no Cadillac here.”

  Hmm. No, there wasn’t.

  “I show you a story.” He motioned me to follow him back into the Immigration building. “Can you read?” he handed me a newspaper.

  “Yes.”

  “Then read,” he pointed at the front page headline.

  And I questioned, “‘No Second Chance’?”

  “Read it.”

  The story was about a father and son who had broken into a private home to steal an old television and what must have been one hell of a paper towel holder. It was their first and last offense because the judge sentenced them to life in jail.

  “We take theft very serious on the island.”

  “I see that.”

  “A stolen car would be very serious.”

  “I imagine so.”

  He asked again, “Do you think I would look good in that car?”

  And I was certain, “Yes. Yes, I think you would look better in that car than me.”

  ~~~~~~

  When I first heard about Belize, it had been described as full of liars, criminals, and exiles.

  “Liars, criminals, and exiles?” I might as well have been told they were handing out royal titles and I could be the queen. “The place sounds divine. I have to see it.”

  My friends took this announcement with all due horror. They tried to persuade, threaten, and warn against it.

  “How safe is Belize for a single woman?” one friend asked a retired Army officer who knew me just well enough.

  He said, “For any cautious woman, with a sense of restraint and self-preservation, it is safe enough. But for Tanya? Tanya will be dead in three months.”

  I remember my triumphant return. “Ha,” I boasted, “I was there for three months and I lived.”

  To which the wise Army officer replied, “Yes, but had you remained a day longer, would you be?”

  He had a point.

  But I thought my sense of self-preservation was a little better than he imagined. After all, I’d made it through customs with my freedom. And it seemed I now had a friend at the border. We shared a secret that could put us both in jail, but neither of us seemed the sort to talk.

  The custom’s official gave me a ride to the bus, and I had to admit, “The car does suit you.”

  “Any time you want, girl, I be here for you. I drive you anywhere you want. Or you could stay. I take you home to my madda.”

  I didn’t think I’d ever see him again, but it seemed polite to suggest, “We’ll have dinner on my way back north.”

  I wasn’t in the least upset about the way things had turned out—the Mustang wasn’t mi
ne to be upset about—but it was strange being without a car.

  And public transport was unlike anything I had experienced. From the outside, it was just an old school bus still painted yellow from the States, but inside, tasseled upholstery fringe was strung across the windows with multi-colored Christmas lights, and South African reggae played from speakers bolted to the roof. The bus stopped at a field between the border and the capital so that forty men with machetes could board. One of them fell asleep on my shoulder, and nothing I was prepared to do would wake him up.

  After six weeks of touring the country, I understood I had to share a seat already occupied by a woman if I didn’t want a man nuzzling into my neck, but little else had occurred to make me think I wouldn’t live another six weeks. I was fairly certain the three month prediction of my demise was inaccurate.

  Belize wasn’t exciting enough to be deadly. It was certainly full of liars, criminals, and exiles, but they all seemed to be retired.

  And when I stopped long enough to think about it, I was pretty tired too. I’d divorced shortly before leaving Tennessee, and even though it had been a friendly parting, divorce is something that starts a long time before the paperwork is finalized and finishes a long time after.

  Divorce is exhausting.

  So is non-stop traveling.

  When I arrived in San Ignacio on Belize’s western border, I was so drained of energy, so desperate for a touch of stability, I decided to stay. I thought I might stay forever. But that was before meeting the crazy American.

  ~~~~~~

  If you’re not completely sick of my personality by now, you’ll find more information on The Expatriates at my website tanyathompsonbooks.com